Christmas Cruise

Matt and I went on a cruise from December 21st-26th. It left from Miami and was supposed to stop at Nassau, Coco Cay, and Key West, before returning to Miami. We flew down to Miami on Monday morning and were met at the airport by Matt's sister, Stacy, and her boyfriend, Jereme. Matt's parents and grandmother met us at the ship later that day.

Our trip was a good one. We spent our first day at Nassau and although it was very tourist-y, it was a nice place. We had lunch at Senor Frogs which is a hilarious restaurant where it basically is a constant party.
The only thing that wasn't great about the trip was the weather. Now, I can't say it was cold, because it was 30 in CT. But, it was between 65 and 70 in the Bahamas, which is nice but it was also ridiculously windy and it rained for a bit.
After we spent the day at the Bahamas, we went back to the ship and got ready for our "formal dinner." We went all out and had a wonderful time! Our waiter was amazing and hilarious.
We were unable to get off the ship to go to Coco Cay due to the intense winds. We didn't pull into a port, mostly because they don't have any at Coco Cay. The tether boats were flopping around in the ocean, so we didn't go. So, we had to spent that entire day on the ship which got to be quite boring. We drank quite a bit, gambled a bit, and drank some more. I did end up feeling sea sick by the end of the night and I went to bed feeling horrible. Ick, luckily, I felt fine for the rest of the trip.

The following day we went to Key West which was also a lot of fun. We basically just walked around and shopped a bit. When we came back to the ship, it was Christmas Eve! So, we opened presents :)


Christmas Day was spent on the ship again and we hung around again. It was another relatively boring day but just hanging around with Matt's family was fun.

I'm glad to be home and I did miss my family on Christmas but overall it was a great time and I would love to cruise again! Merry Christmas!

4 sets of twins

I finally have a day off tomorrow. I am beyond exhausted. I feel like all I do is go to work and sleep. And honestly, that is really all I have been doing. I am really irritable too. I can't wait for vacation! Only 8 more days!

I have a cute story! My floor/hospital made the news a few nights ago. During a 10 hour time period, 4 sets of twins were delivered! One set was full term vaginal delivery twins! Amazing! And, there was a set of twins earlier in the week. It was a busy few days on the floor, we had no cribs! We were forced to use the DR metal cribs once we ran out of wooden cribs.

New bedding

I have been looking for new bedding for a long long time. I previously had a blue quilt that was so dirty from the dogs. I subscribe to Bedding Envy and constantly look at all of the department stores for bedding that I like.

Well, I have had this one in mind for months but it was $307! And, it only had a comforter and 2 pillow shams. I was watching it on amazon.com for a while and it was averaging about $215. The other night, it went down to $179! So, I bought it!

Today I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought some sheets to go with it. Here is the final product :)

Racism

The first day of orientation the facilitator asked us if we noticed other people's differences: color, size, gender, etc. Many people said "No, I am color blind" and other sayings like that. I said, yes I do notice them but it doesn't make much difference to me. I'm not going to lie and say that I don't think certain things about certain types of people but I don't immediately make judgments. I let the person show themselves to me and then make my determination.

Anyway, the whole purpose of this post is regarding something that the New Graduate Nurse Residency Coordinator said this afternoon. We were having what we call "Tales from the Bedside" and were discussing different things that we have experienced. We started talking about psychosocial issues on the different units and I mentioned the 16 year old who was on her 4th pregnancy. The coordinator immediately asked if the patient was black. I stumbled on my words for a moment and told her that in fact, NO, the patient wasn't black.

I couldn't believe that she just said that out loud to us. I mean, I do work in a large city with a huge minority population, but that was just rude, judgmental, and downright racist.

Wordless Wednesday

Newborn babies

The weeks are just flying by! I can't believe that I have been out of school for almost 7 months! Been an RN for 4 months and had a job for 1.5 months.

Today I spent my last day in the nursery. I spent a total of 5 days in the nursery as a part of orientation. I can go back again later before orientation ends if I feel I need it. It was a fun few days. We had up to 8 babies each shift and tons of circumcisions, bilirubin levels to draw, and other issues with babies to work with. It is definitely not an easy job like most people think. However, it definitely fun when you get down time and can feed and hold babies.

I have perfected diaper changes, swaddling, and feeding babies. I need to continue to work on drawing blood, it is not an easy task, and of course you feel bad doing it.

I am back on the floor on Saturday and will be back to working with mother-baby couplets. Eventually I will move on to working with antepartum patients, or "waiting moms" as they call them on the unit. I am nervous about working with them because the risks are higher and there is a lot more unknown.